Why the US could snatch a Venezuelan tanker — and not under ‘wartime’ authority used in cartel strikes

By Fox News · Fox News

The Trump administration is relying on a sharply different legal justification for seizing a Venezuelan oil tanker than striking alleged narco-traffickers, even if both moves are intended to ramp up pressure on Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro. Attorney General Pam Bondi on Thursday framed the U.S. seizure of a Venezuelan crude oil tanker as a straightforward sanctions enforcement action rooted in a federal court warrant. Bondi said the tanker, long sanctioned for moving illicit Venezuelan and Iranian oil in support of foreign terrorist organizations, was taken into custody by the Coast Guard with help from the War Department after investigators executed a warrant off the coast of Venezuela. A senior administration official told Fox News the sanctions designation is the sole legal basis for seizing the ship — not the armed-conflict authority the administration has invoked to justify kinetic strikes on drug-trafficking vessels. The distinction highlights the administration’s reliance on two very different legal frameworks in the same region: traditional sanctions and forfeiture statutes for the tanker, and a contentious assertion of wartime authority against drug cartels for the maritime strikes. RAND PAUL JOINS DEMS ON 'WAR POWERS RESOLUTION' CLAIMING TRUMP ADMIN COULD SOON STRIKE VENEZUELAN TERRITORY The tanker, known as the Skipper, has been on a U.S. sanctions list for several years for allegedly moving crude tied to a clandestine Venezuela–Iran oil network that Washington says helped generate revenue for foreign terrorist organizations. According to officials, that designation rendered the vessel "blocked property" under U.S. law, allowing the Justice Department to seek and obtain a federal warrant to seize it under civil forfeiture statutes. That process — rooted in domestic law and executed through a U.S. court — is the basis for Thursday’s operation, administration officials said. TRUMP SAYS US SEIZES MASSIVE VENEZUELAN OIL TANKER AS SHOWDOWN WITH MADURO ERU…